Cox enforces acceptable use policy, lies to its customers

Shortly after the EU has determined that cutting someone's Internet service …

Over the last few years, content owners have tried a variety of approaches to combat the sharing of copyrighted files, but of late, their attention has focused on a basic solution: kick the pirates off the Internet entirely. A so-called "three strikes" policy would see ISPs provide users that had been caught sharing copyrighted material with two warnings, after which they would be disconnected. Even though most of the three strikes action has occurred in Europe, one US ISP has apparently implemented it, and justified its action with a spurious argument: the DMCA made them do it.

Internationally, content owners have been excited by the prospect of three strikes-regulation. The idea would be that copyright holders could notify ISPs of people engaging in filesharing of unlicensed content. The ISPs would, in turn warn the user about the legal dubiousness of this activity, and provide them with hints as to how to secure their networks and eliminate P2P software from their machines. If two warnings aren't sufficient, the ISP would simply disconnect the user on the third offense.

So far, however, the closest the policy has come to implementation is in the UK, where some ISPs have voluntarily agreed to send out warning letters, but haven't agreed to actually pull the plug on anyone. In fact, the European Parliament has just taken a major step to block that from ever happening. An amendment to a telecom bill would require that any disconnection be reviewed by the courts, which would probably make the process as painful, if not more so, than filing a lawsuit and seeking damages.

In the US, the RIAA has gone for the lawsuit/damages approach, and there has been little talk of agitating for a three-strikes law. Accusations are flying, however, that this may be a case of all action, no talk. TorrentFreak has posted the tale of one of its users, a Cox Communications subscriber, who has apparently been disconnected after what he claimed was his third strike. The report came complete with a screenshot of the warning page the user was referred to.

We were unable to find the text of this page by searching Cox's site. Assuming it's accurate, however, the most striking aspect of the page is that Cox claims it is required to take this action by the DMCA, a claim that is simply false.

There doesn't seem to be any reason to lie here; sharing copyrighted material is against Cox's acceptable use policy, so the company appears to have every right to terminate service. A spokesman for Cox told Ars that the screenshot simply reflects part of the process by which the company responds to a DMCA takedown notice. The company considers it essential to alert its customers when they are the target of these, and attempts to do so by e-mail. Only when that fails do users wind up having their browser redirected to the warning page.

Cox estimates that it has received hundreds of thousands of DMCA complaints, but has terminated accounts in "less than one-tenth of one percent" of these cases. As he described it, there is nothing like a three strikes policy in place.

There seem to be two problems, however, with this course of action. The first is that the company is needlessly muddying the waters in an area of law (the DMCA) that has become more and more significant to computer users as user-generated content has increased in popularity. Perhaps more importantly, however, Cox is pursuing its policy following unsubstantiated accusations of copyright violations, precisely the sort of action that the EU has decided was not going to cut it. After all, it's possible to get DMCA takedown notices sent to printers.